Tibetan / Vajrayana

Vajrayana Buddhism is most closely associated with Tibet and can be characterized by the figure of the siddha, the master whose spiritual realization is so profound that he or she has power over the phenomenal world, and in whom the profundity and vastness of absolute truth is fully and completely manifested. Many of our most well-known authors come from this tradition of Tibetan Buddhism .

[Note: The tags for the various schools are not definitive as many books span multiple traditions, etc. They are meant to use as a starting point for exploring this collection.]

Text and Commentaries on the Rigdzin Düpa

The Rigdzin Düpa, of Gathering of Vidyadharas, is one of the most important practice texts in the Nyingma, or ancient, school of Tibetan Buddhism and is practiced by many tens of thousands of practioners around the world. This book includes… Read More

A Complete Translation of the Bodhisattvabhumi

Ārya Asanga’s Bodhisattvabhūmi, or The Stage of a Bodhisattva, is the Mahāyāna tradition’s most comprehensive manual on the practice and training of bodhisattvas—by the author’s own account, a compilation of the full range of instructions contained in the entire collection… Read More

The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Tib. Lam rim chen mo) is one of the brightest jewels in the world’s treasury of sacred literature. The author, Tsong-kha-pa, completed it in 1402, and it soon became… Read More

The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Tib. Lam rim chen mo) is one of the brightest jewels in the world’s treasury of sacred literature. The author, Tsong-kha-pa, completed it in 1402, and it soon became… Read More

The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment (Tib. Lam rim chen mo) is one of the brightest jewels in the world’s treasury of sacred literature. The author, Tsong-kha-pa, completed it in 1402, and it soon became… Read More

Teachings on the Songs of Jigten Sumgon and Milarepa

Spiritual teachings in the form of songs—spontaneous expressions of deep wisdom and understanding that reveal the nature of reality—have been treasured since the dawn of Buddhism in India. In Opening the Treasure of the Profound, Khenchen Konchog Gyaltshen translates nine… Read More

A Treasury of Priceless Scripture

This fourteenth-century Tibetan classic serves as an excellent introduction to basic Buddhism as practiced throughout India and Tibet and describes the process of entering the Buddhist path through study and reflection.

Maitreya's Dharmadharmatavibhanga with Commentaries by Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham

The Buddhist masterpiece Distinguishing Phenomena from Their Intrinsic Nature, often referred to by its Sanskrit title, Dharmadharmatāvibhaṅga, is part of a collection known as the Five Maitreya Teachings, a set of philosophical works that have become classics of the Indian… Read More

The Practice of Tara the Liberator

Tara, the feminine embodiment of enlightened activity, is a Buddhist deity whose Tibetan name means “liberator,” signaling her ability to free beings from the delusion and ignorance that keep them trapped in ever-recurring patterns of negativity. She embodies a challenge,… Read More

Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom from the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition

We all face death, but how many of us are actually ready for it? Whether our own death or that of a loved one comes first, how prepared are we, spiritually or practically? In Preparing to Die, Andrew Holecek presents… Read More

Self-Awakening through Contemplative Meditation

Through Contemplative Meditation we learn to investigate reality by looking carefully at our own mind and everyday life. We come to know ourselves very well—not only the negative habits we want to change, but our innate potential to find peace,… Read More

Clarifying the Meaning of Chod (Expanded Edition)

Fear, anger, and negativity are states that each of us have to contend with. Machik's Complete Explanation, the most famous book of the teachings of Machik Lapdrön, the great female saint and yogini of eleventh- to twelfth-century Tibet, addresses… Read More

Twelve Extraordinary Women Shaping the Transmission of Tibetan Buddhism in the West

What drives a young London librarian to board a ship to India, meditate in a remote cave by herself for twelve years, and then build a flourishing nunnery in the Himalayas? How does a surfer girl from Malibu become the… Read More

Deity Practice in Tibetan Buddhism

Vajra Wisdom presents the commentaries of two great nineteenth-century Nyingma masters that guide practitioners engaged in development stage practice through a series of straightforward instructions. The rarity of this kind of material in English makes it indispensable for practitioners… Read More

Living with Wisdom and Compassion

It can be hard for those of us living in the twenty-first century to see how fourteenth-century Buddhist teachings still apply. When you’re trying to figure out which cell phone plan to buy or brooding about something someone wrote about… Read More